Interview

By Bazaar Staff 02/01/2017

CUT AND PASTE BAZAAR

The one where we starred in a Primary School’s art show!

The best thing about being a bazaarite is providing informative, interesting and entertaining content for our community. From our writers, to our design department, our communications manager and our media expert, even down to our head honcho, we all feel pride and dedication in serving our readers with engaging tidbits about what’s what and who’s who (and what’s delicious!) in the country. This year marks our 20th anniversary since initial publication, and with over 200 editions circulating Kuwait since 1997, we’re always overjoyed to learn that many still hold our post to high regard.

This is why, when Ghadeer AlKhabbaz, a local primary school arts teacher, contacted us requesting 50 copies of our magazine to use for an art project she’d assigned her students, we were overjoyed and promptly decided to inquire about her process!

We love nothing more than seeing the proof in the pudding when it comes to members of the community using our publication in different ways, and in Ghadeer’s case, we love that she’s extended our pages to her students, introducing them to the fun and value of print media in the process.

What’s even more fun about her project is the day-long exhibition the students partook in to display their bazaar-filled works of art! We sit down with Ghadeer to discuss her vision, as she explains to us how our magazine has helped her curriculum, and how her students were able to utilize our words and images to create frame-worthy masterpieces.

What inspired you to use bazaar magazine as a base for your class to create collages with?

My decision to choose bazaar came in the right time, because it motivated my students as well as me. bazaar is accessible: it’s usually easy to find and you have the option of picking it up whenever you manage to find it at a café, university or school. As an art teacher, I have a different perspective on looking at thinks. When I browse bazaar, I find professional photos, attractive article titles, variety in colors and format that helps us to achieve balance in creating our artworks. Plus, it has different topics that speaks to the youth and sparks their interest.

What was the objective of this project?

We instruct Paper Art in stage 9 curriculums, and Collage is a part of that curriculum, tying into the overall Paper Art experience. The main objectives of this project were to:

Look at things in a different perspective and in an unusual way.

Create non-traditional art to inspire the audience.

Increase the students’ confidence, supporting their talents.

Spread art and youth creativity in the nation.

Why is the experience of creating collage important to the student’s artistic development?

In our community, a popular belief when it comes to art is “you are an artist if you can draw.” This is unfortunate, and we need to change people’s perspectives, especially amongst students, because they are in the learning stage of their lives and they trust what their instructors advise them to do.

Art has different aspects that the community, as well as the students, should be made aware of, and if these artworks can do anything, they can showcase this expansion of “art” to an audience or group of students firsthand, which may even inspire them to branch out and try a similar concept on their own.

What part of the collage process did the students enjoy the most?

I noticed that they most enjoyed the process of cutting parts of a whole photo and re-structuring it with other photo parts to create a new shape out of the combination. They played around with creating structures resembling human faces and bodies by collecting the face parts and outfits from different photo references.

The challenge of the project was also an exciting factor. This is because the students were instructed to create their pieces by using only your September and October issues to create different concepts and styles.

Will this become a part of your yearly curriculum for future classes?

Definitely! The lesson and exhibition were successful, and the students had learned a lot from it, so that inspires and encourages me to make this an annual thing. Hopefully, I’ll be using even more bazaar magazines for these projects in the future!